THE JUS COGENS THE GROUND NORM OF INTERNATIONAL LAW

Abstract

The author of this conference succinctly presents the importance of jus cogens for the International and Central American Community, since there can not be an international, inter-American or Central American order, without the protection and respect for the fundamental principles of nature erga omnes contemplated in the UN Charter, in the Charter of the OAS, in the Protocol of Tegucigalpa and in other international instruments. The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties of 1969 in article 53 establishes the requirements for a rule of international law to be accepted as jus cogens. And Article 64 of that instrument establishes the retroactive nature of the rules of jus cogens: "If a peremptory norm of general international law emerges, any existing instrument that is in opposition to that norm will become null and void." The doctrine makes coincide the interests of the International Community as a whole with those that transcend the States or that respond to the essential legal minimum that the International Community requires for its survival. The jurisprudence of the courts of justice are plagued by rules of jus cogens to protect the most sacred rights and fundamental freedoms of the human being. The norms of jus cogens are for the universal, inter-American or community system, the ground norm as the Political Constitution is for the national State.